


Heat Wave

by lemonsharks



Series: Every Terrible, Necessary Choice [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Hot Weather, Kissing Meme, Summer, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 11:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4390931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is too damn <em>hot</em> tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat Wave

**Author's Note:**

> Kiss meme response - _Kissing with foreheads touching_.

Dinnertime on a rest-day’s eve was a loud and joyful affair at the Vigil. It was also Alistair’s to supervise, tonight: make the shouted insults _stayed_ good-natured and no one started throwing bread or worse. They were comrades, partners, _friends_ , brought into a new life and bound together by the shared weight of their duty. They were also criminals, miscreants, ne'er-do-wells and desperate fools who needed looking after, lest they get out-of-hand.

As one was wont to do before heading out into Amaranthine City, to wash away your meal with a good, strong drink and the promise of excitement to come. There might have been a time when Alistair might have joined them. He honestly couldn’t remember. As it was, he helped clear the tables out of habit trained into him young and tromped up to bed with the bone-weariness that comes with making _decisions_ all day.

And hitting things while thigh-deep in swamp in the middle of summer.

Serelle had preceded him, and lay sprawled on the bed in nothing but her smalls and one of his shirts, one arm thrown over her eyes. Her mabari snored from his summer-bed beneath the window, ready to catch any breeze that might pass through.

“If there’s an army of darkspawn at the gate, someone else can kill them,” she said. “I’m not moving from this spot for a _year_.”

“That bad?” he asked, stripping out of his boots and mail, trading the rest of his clothes for a nightshirt and a fervent hope the heat would break overnight.

“ _I_ got to play Arlessa today.”

Alistair made a sympathetic noise.

“Spiders in the basement, mistakes in the ledger with tax due in a month, the kitchen garden _overrun_ with aphids and _of course_ ‘my lady has to see them for herself'. _And_ there was petty court in the city—I swear they’d have us conscript every idiot who steals a loaf of bread. What about you? What did you have?”

“Three broken noses, one dislocated shoulder—Temmen got himself _lost_ on patrol—and a demon. One of the slinky ones with the feathers. Which then called in six more of its demon friends.”

“I _hate_ those,” she said, peaking at him from beneath her arm. “But we found out what was blocking the pipes in the bathing room. Spider nest. All fixed, now.”

“I saw,” he replied. “And as the man who was out looking for our recruits in the swamp, I thank you.”

He went to the bed, and sat on the edge beside her. Serelle mumbled something, lost to the beginning of sleep; Alistair moved her arm so that the crook of her elbow rested over the top of her head. She craned her neck, lips parted, and he bent, pressing their foreheads together.

Alistair shifted, just enough for the soft brush of a kiss, before she dropped back onto her pillow.

She ran her fingers through his hair, mussing it, and he grinned. Sweat beaded on his neck; the night was still.

“It is too _damn_ hot,” Serelle said.

“It’s a wonder the two of us survived the Blight at all, if _Amaranthine_ can bring us to heel.”

“Sheer dumb luck.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, and climbed over to his side, rather than walk around. “ _That’s_ a comforting thought. Also, you are now closer to the lamp than me.”

“Heartless fiend.”

“One wonders why you keep me around.”

Alistair leaned up on one elbow, watching while the woman he loved most in the world struggled to snuff the lamp without leaving the bed, or standing. After the first minute or so he didn’t even bother _trying_ to hold back his laughter.

“Demon…hugger—”

“ _Hugger_ , really?”

And now he couldn’t _breathe_ ; Alistair dabbed at his eyes with the edge of the blanket, gasping for any air he could get down into his lungs.

Serelle gave up and crossed the room, doused the light. She spoke before either of their eyes adjusted to the dark. “Just you remember, ser, I know what you sound like when you’ve finally gone to sleep and I know _exactly_ where you’re ticklish.”

“All right, all right,” he said. holding both hands up. “I yield, you win.”

She flopped down on the bed again, and even with her body near she radiated heat. Any other night he’d’ve pulled he close and soaked in the _nearness_ of her, but tonight—it _was_ too still and too hot and the effort of moving his tired, bruised limbs seemed like so much _work_.

“Tomorrow,” she murmured, or might have; he was too close to sleep to tell for sure, “Tomorrow _you_ be Arlessa and _I’ll_ go kill monsters in the swamp, s'all right?”


End file.
